How To Spot The International Space Station

5/22/2014

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Image Credit: NASA

Is it a plane? Is it a meteor?
It couldt be the International Space Station (ISS).

Over and over again, the ISS come
to be visible in the night sky. To us on Earth, it looks like a perky star stirring
rapidly above the skyline. The ISS is so bright, it can even been seen from the
middle of a city. Then, just as quickly as it appeared, it vanishes. How do you
distinguish when you can see the ISS in your dark night sky?

Image Credit: Dave Walker.

NASA has initiated a Spot the
Station platform where people from round the world can sign up to obtain signals
when the ISS will be observable from your site. You can obtain alerts via email
or a text message right in your phone. Normally, alerts are referred to users a
few times each month when the station’s path is close to your location. Visit
the Spot the Station website here to sign up, and see a list of upcoming spotting
opportunities.

Alerts will simply be directed
to you when the ISS will be openly observable from your location for at least a
couple of minutes. If you are in north of 51.6 degrees latitude for instance,
in Alaska, you will likely have to visit the website to find sighting chances
because announcements in this area would be rare.

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